Aslı Çavuşoğlu is an artist and writer whose interest in the instability of historical ‘facts’ is seen in the erratic dialectic between repetition and elision. The subjectivity of histories, both writ large and personal, is perhaps Çavuşoğlu’s most beloved medium. Her work RED / RED [Diptych] (2015), a delicate drawing on aged paper, stands as a beautiful transmutation of a historical pigment into the now. The piece draws one of its reds from Armenian cochineal (Porphyrophora Hamelii) ink, the earliest known use of which dates back to Palmyra textiles in the seventh century BCE and which can be found in Armenian miniatures and manuscripts throughout history. It is derived from an acid found in an insect indigenous to the Aras River Valley—its waterway drawing a natural border between present-day Turkey and Armenia. That the insect has been listed as an endangered species since the 1970s, when Armenia was part of the Soviet Union, poetically nods to the geopolitical and ecological pressure that this area has been subjected to for many generations, as well as to the at best fragmented historicizations surrounding the Armenian genocide of 1915. Cochineal, obtained from another insect, was also encountered by Spanish colonists in Mexico during the first half of the sixteenth century, and was an early commodity traded along the first global routes linking the Americas, Asia, and Europe. The other red in the work, a bolder hue found in Turkey’s national flag, with its hard edges and stronger opacity, points to these conflictual narratives with elegance. To understand a colour across time and the particular history of its origins, geography, and usage is a radical move that insists on enduring presence as much as it expresses belief in the curiosity of the viewer to make their own connections.

Works in the exhibition: RED / RED [The story of Agathange, a vision from St Gregory, the Enlightened] (2015), Armenian cochineal ink on restored paper, 16.5 × 33.5 cm; RED / RED [Diptych] (2015), Armenian cochineal ink on restored paper, 100 × 70 cm. Courtesy of collection LAURASAR